“We strongly advise anyone planning to come to Stonehenge for solstice to leave their cars at home and travel by public transport. Salisbury is easily accessible by train and the local Salisbury Reds bus company will be running a special service from Salisbury to Stonehenge through Saturday night and into the next day. Solstice Events are offering their usual transport from Bath and Stonehenge guided tours are offering their small group tour from London.

An experiment by University College London has just shown that mounting huge stones on a sycamore sleigh and dragging it along timbers required far less effort than was expected. According to Prof Mike Parker-Pearson: “It was a bit of a shock to see how easy it was to pull the stone.”

It reminded us of experiments starting in 2005 organised by Gordon Pipes, a carpenter from Derbyshire and a member of Heritage Action. He formed a group of interested amateur antiquarians, including mainly our members, called ‘the Stonehengineers’ and staged a demonstration (appropriately, at the National Tramway Museum) of a method he believed may have been used. He called it “stone rowing” and his idea was that lifting the stones on levers and moving them along in a series of short steps would involve less friction and therefore require less effort than hauling them on rollers – so far fewer…

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Take part in Stonehenge experiment: How many people does it take to lift one block?

Heavy lifting: the smallest stones at the prehistoric site weigh about two tonnes REUTERS/Kieran Doherty

Anyone who has wondered what it took to lift a piece of Stonehenge into place has a chance to have a go themselves in a mass experiment.

Experts from University College London are seeking volunteers to help them lift a replica stone using prehistoric technology and brute strength.

Doctoral student Barney Harris, who is organising the event in Gordon Square near the UCL campus on Monday, said he believed it would take 40 to 50 people to lift a single stone, which at one tonne is half the weight of the smallest block at Stonehenge.

Mr Harris said: “We will be using a model of a sledge that might have been used, but other than that it will be people power. It’s on a much smaller scale than the real thing, but it will help us work out what it took to create it.”

The event, from 2pm to 4pm, is one of 80 being held during the university’s Festival of Culture next week.
Article Source: The Evening Standard

As part of the UCL Festival of Culture participants will have the chance to become part of an experimental team that will attempt to transport a large replica Stonehenge stone using Neolithic technology. click here for UCL

Historic England, the National Trust and English Heritage also support the plans.

The report highlighted the scheme’s potential to become a “best practice case” for a World Heritage Site.

It said the scheme must “both protect the outstanding universal value” of the site and also “benefit road users”.

At the moment the congested A303 cuts through the middle of the area.

Helen Ghosh, director general of the National Trust, said the report “recognises the unmissable opportunity” the government’s road improvement scheme offers to address “the blight of the existing A303”.

Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, welcomed the report but said “sensitive design” would be needed.

Kate Mavor, chief executive of English Heritage, added: “Provided that it is designed and built in the right way, a tunnel would reunite the wider landscape around the ancient stones, helping people to better understand and enjoy them.”

Historic England, the National Trust and English Heritage welcome the ICOMOS/UNESCO report [1] published on Friday (Friday 29 April) which recognises the benefits a tunnel of at least 2.9km could bring to the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, if it is designed and delivered well.

The report by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation is the result of an advisory mission to the World Heritage Site in October 2015. The report mirrors the views held jointly by Historic England, the National Trust and English Heritage, in acknowledging that a fully-bored tunnel of at least 2.9km could help to significantly improve the World Heritage Site and that the design and location of all aspects of the road improvement scheme need to be carefully and fully considered [2].

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